IRV - Instant Run-off Voting

As you must have heard, this year we get to elect our new mayor using the Instant Run-off Voting method – IRV. There are some people who are intimidated by this method and are afraid of being confused. If you or someone you know falls into that category, please do not let it deter you from voting.

There is more information at www.burlingtonvotes.org. That site has a flash animation demonstration of the process.

In January on She’s Right, I gave a detailed description of the process, which one caller described as the best explanation he had heard of IRV. You can listen to the podcast here. And I didn’t even charge the city $5,800!

Last year, the IRV supporters toted around Terry Bouricius, a former Progressive state representative from Burlington, who now owns a consulting company Election Solutions, to explain to voters why we need this system. I saw him on at least two channel 17 shows, including the Burlington Progressives live @5:25 show. He was arguably the biggest pusher of this new system.

Once the system was adopted, the city set aside $10,000 for voter education. (Of course one of the reasons we just had to have IRV was to save the city money from a costly run-off election, even though we haven’t had one in how long?) Wouldn’t you know it, a $5,800 contract was given to none other than Election Solutions. So the guy who convinced everyone that IRV was what we needed to solve a problem that we didn’t have was awarded a city contract to educate the voters after IRV passed. Isn’t politics grand! (What was that liberals keep saying about the GOP giving government contracts to cronies?? News flash – their hands are not clean either.)

You can contact City Hall if you need more help understanding IRV. I would say contact your City Councilors, but one of you might try to contact Carmen George. (That’s sort of an inside joke. She has been asked more than once on channel 17 and in other situations to explain it, but she cannot do so satisfactorily, even though she supported it.) If you get really desperate, e-mail me. I understand it well. Back when I was with the GOP, I had a lot of people express to me their fear of being confused at the ballot box, so I learned all about it I could. I couldn’t risk losing what few GOP votes we get to a process that is really easier than it sounds. There will also be people at the polls who can help you. (Just don't listen to them when they tell you who to vote for. Tell them they are not supposed to do that.)

I think IRV will work fine. It’s not that hard. Most of the ballot will be filled out normally. The only difference is the mayoral section. When you get to it, simply find Kevin Curley’s name, moving to the right fill-in the first oval next to his name. It will be in a column marked “1st choice” at the top. You can stop here or you can find Bob Kiss’ name and fill in the second oval to the right of his name, under the column marked “2nd choice” at the top. Be careful not to fill in the first oval next to Kiss or you will spoil your ballot. Allegedly, they will kick out spoiled ballots and let you re-vote, but I have little to no faith in the elections officials. Maybe I will test it and see if they really do kick it out and let me re-vote. You can see a sample of what an IRV ballot looks like here.

For another fun ballot configuration, you can fill-in the write-in section with “I would rather elect a dead dog than Hinda Miller.” Ahh, I crack myself up. It’s funny how even I was singing Hinda’s praises for a second choice and now I would even rank Louie the Cowman above her. Haik Bedrosian over at BurlingtonPol.com did the same thing, only he had her ranked first and has since demoted her to fourth, and he would never vote for Louie the Cowman. It’s the same idea though; the more people really listen to her, the more they really dislike her. Let’s just hope that everyone has been listening.